laborious

"No man e'er was glorious, who was not laborious."

- Ben Franklin

hooray for free markets!

Morning Edition, November 2, 2007 · Known as a nation of borrowers, America at last count had a collective $2.5 trillion in consumer debt. But it could fast become a nation of lenders as Web sites that enable ordinary people to lend to each other flourish.

Welcome to the era of coffee shop money lending.

In a café in Washington D.C., 31-year-old Kelly Vielmo stares at a laptop screen and browses a listing of people who want to borrow money. He's logged into his account at "person-to-person" lending site Prosper.com.

"In my search engines, I have three of them. Depending on how risky I feel that day I'll go ahead and click on the 15-percent one," said Vielmo.

That means he'll only see people who are willing to pay at least 15-percent interest.
Vielmo joined Prosper.com, because he wanted to see if he could earn a return that would cover his student loans. He did. He's now loaned $24,000 of his savings to nearly 400 people.
His average interest rate? 18 percent.

He clicks on another listing. It's titled: "Fashion designer needs to pay veterinary bill."
"Ten thousand dollars and she' willing to pay 29 percent.," said Vielmo. "In the listing itself we can see that she starts to ramble on about where she lives, and she has a pet pig named Tilly. She is a swine leader for her local 4H group, so she is a well rounded individual — she just needs money for the veterinary bill."

There are photos of the lender and her pet pig. But Vielmo worries this fashion designer is overstretching herself by offering 29 percent, and she could end up defaulting. So he skips to the next listings.

Prosper.com and a smaller competitor called LendingClub.com are like the auction site eBay.com, but only for money.

Prosper and LendingClub use the Internet to bring together lenders and borrowers.

Prosper.com now has more than 450,000 members though it isn't yet two years old. Lending Club started five months ago and has 20,000 members.

"People get it. And that's really important – that people understand how important money and finance are to how you succeed in America," Larsen said.

Another company, LendingCircle.com, handles loans exclusively among family members and friends. It grew so fast, British financier Richard Branson bought it and a few weeks ago renamed it Virgin Money.

Prosper.com co-founder Chris Larsen said he's "surprised" by how fast person-to-person lending is catching on.

While lenders join Prosper.com and LendingClub.com to take advantage of high interest, borrowers come to these sites because they want to pay down credit cards that charge even higher interest. People also come for small business loans.

Ryan Oliver, 34, needed funding for his Miami sportswear startup. He said he didn't get much help from banks.

"They didn't give me the time of day," Oliver said.

But on LendingClub.com he borrowed $12,000, at 10.5-percent interest.

Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Institute, which promotes free market capitalism, said these sites offer a solution: "It's a market solution to get both these players into the banking business, into the banking world, providing capital for some, and providing an avenue for higher returns."

On Prosper.com and LendingClub.com everyone uses anonymous screen names. But lenders can see credit scores and other personal financial information in order to judge who they providing money to.

Still, it's lender beware.

Said Vielmo: "I have had a few defaults, and one was quite surprising. It was a day spa that needed money to expand. The person who was borrowing had very good credit and actually didn't even make one payment."
He has learned to lend amounts small enough in case he as to swallow defaults. Currently, more than 90 percent of his loans are paying on time, he said, so he'll continue browsing for borrowers.

10/31/88 - welcome back frank

All Things Considered, November 1, 2007 · Richard Kelly's 2001 film helped propel Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal to stardom and has become a cult favorite through relentless midnight screenings across the country.

Now, Frank the evil rabbit and his troubled teenage victim hit the boards in a play that tries to capture the film's quick cuts through some 70 stage scenes. It's now playing in Cambridge, Mass.

doing what you want to do

What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.

- Bob Dylan

the compact - a year without shopping

THE COMPACT

1) to go beyond recycling in trying to counteract the negative global environmental and socioeconomic impacts of U.S. consumer culture, to resist global corporatism, and to support local businesses, farms, etc; 2) to reduce clutter and waste in our homes (as in trash Compact-er); 3) to simplify our lives (as in Calm-pact)

http://sfcompact.blogspot.com/

r.i.p. halloween

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 24 — This Halloween, the Glindas, gladiators and harem boys of the Castro — along with untold numbers who plan to dress up as Senator Larry E. Craig, this year’s camp celebrity — will be celebrating behind closed doors. The city’s most popular Halloween party, in America’s largest gay neighborhood, is canceled.

donate

mikey riley

GO EAST YOUNG MAN

by DOUGLAS ZIMMERMAN

Michael "Mikey" Riley headed west to San Francisco. Like many youths from the East Coast, Mikey was attracted to the liberal and diverse reputation of the city.He came to San Francisco to explore his passion: photography. However as living in the city became expensive, he was unable to support himself and work on his art.After a year of struggle, Mikey headed back home to Utica, New York. Here are his final few weeks in San Francisco and the long, hard trip back east

i don't make these things up

The fear of the number 666 is called hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia.

eff amy winehouse

hello, von iva.

"to me a lunch hour isn't an hour - it's a state of mind"

overheard in the office

"groovy like a washboard"

Ralph Arlyck's "Following Sean"

You said it, Ari

"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind."

- Aristotle

Michael Apted's "Up Series"

draftgore.com

retire, why?

“When my time comes, I hope I fall dead in the middle of the stage and I hope it’s to a song I wrote.”

- Dolly Parton, on her disinterest in retiring any time soon

sweet soul music, compiled by LCR

soul
1. sweet soul music - arthur conley
2. we're having a party - sam cooke
3. give me a sign - brenton wood
4. cupid - sam cooke
5. shotgun - jr walker & the allstars
6. knock on wood - sam cooke
7. sad song - otis redding
8. twisting the night away - sam cooke
9. that's how strong my love is - otis redding
10. hold on i'm coming - sam & dave
11. who's making love - johnny taylor
12. quinn the eskimo - bob dylan
13. bertha - the grateful dead
14. cherry cherry - neil diamond
15. squeeze box - the who
16. jungle - elo

(made by Lauren Rank 9/1/2007 for the Labor Day Eve BBQ)

canoe

"As one goes throue life one learns that if you don't paddle your own canoe, you don't move"
-Katharine Hepburn

Glenda Bailey - my new favorite person

How would you say you've gotten to where you are?
GB: Hard work and good shoes.

signing off

"be well, do good work, keep in touch"

-garrison keillor, "the writers almanac"

grey gardens remixed

david lynch thought for the day 9/6

"enjoy the work"

Smokers More Likely to Develop Dementia

Smokers More Likely to Develop Dementia
Tuesday, September 4, 2007; 12:00 AM

TUESDAY, Sept. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Current smokers are 50 percent more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease or dementia than people who don't smoke or who gave up smoking, a Dutch report says.

Researchers announced these results after analyzing seven years of data from almost 7,000 people over age 55.

Over the course of the study, 706 people developed dementia. People who were smokers during the study were 50 percent more likely to develop dementia than people who had never smoked or were former smokers, according to the researchers, who published their findings in the Sept. 4 issue ofNeurology.

"Smoking increases the risk of cerebrovascular disease, which is also tied to dementia," study author Dr. Monique Breteler, of Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, said in a prepared statement. "Another mechanism could be through oxidative stress, which can damage cells in the blood vessels and lead to hardening of the arteries. Smokers experience greater oxidative stress than nonsmokers, and increased oxidative stress is also seen in Alzheimer's disease."

Oxidative stress occurs when there are too many waste products from chemical reactions in the body. Dietary antioxidants can fight those waste products, known as free radicals, but Breteler said that smokers are also known to have fewer antioxidants in their diets than nonsmokers.

The researchers also studied the way that smoking affects the risk of Alzheimer's disease for people who carry the related gene. They found that smoking did not increase the risk for those with the gene for Alzheimer's disease, but it did increase the risk for people without the gene. Current smokers without the gene were 70 percent more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease than nonsmokers or former smokers without the gene.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/04/AR2007090400554.html